Oh, GOD. On Sunday I mentioned that Angelina Jolie had spent a few days in Bosnia, doing UNHCR work. While she was there, she also announced her plans to film a movie in Bosnia, the title unknown. The details were sketchy at first – I kind of thought Angelina was announcing a film in which she would have the starring role, as some Bosnian woman caught up in the war or something. Turns out, not so much. Angelina is going to direct this “love story set during the Bosnian war”. Not only is she directing… she’s either written or co-written the screenplay. OH NOES. The screenplay is about a woman boning a married man named Brad Milosevic isn’t it?

Academy Award-winning actress Angelina Jolie is set to make her feature film directorial debut. A love story set during the 1992-95 Bosnian war, the film focuses on a Serbian man and a Bosnian woman who meet on the eve of the war and the effect the war has on their relationship.

Based on an original screenplay written by Jolie, the actors will be solely compromised of various ethnicities from the region of the former Yugoslavia.

Jolie will produce the film alongside GK Films’ Academy Award winning producer Graham King and King’s business partner Tim Headington. Jolie, King and Headington most recently collaborated on the upcoming film “The Tourist” starring Jolie and Johnny Depp and directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, set for theatrical release on December 10th through Columbia pictures.

Jolie, who made a surprise visit to Sarajevo over the weekend, said shooting would begin in the autumn on the tale of a couple who meet on the eve of the war and the effect it has on their relationship.

“The film is a love story, not a political statement,” Jolie said in a statement issued on Saturday by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), for whom she is a goodwill ambassador.

Jolie arrived in Sarajevo on Friday and on Saturday met members of Bosnia’s inter-ethnic presidency to discuss ways to help thousands of returning war refugees. Jolie visited returnees in eastern Bosnia in April with her partner Brad Pitt and promised then to come back.

She said the movie’s cast would be comprised of actors from the various ethnicities of the former Yugoslavia.

“I would like to involve as many local people as possible and learn as much as I can,” Jolie said.

Okay, now… I like Angelina. A lot. And I think she’s probably got a lot of passion for this project – and she probably knows a lot about the Bosnian War and she’s studied the policies and the logistics and all of that. I’m trying to give her credit for being smart – and I do think she’s a smart woman. But I really don’t think this script will be any good. I just… I don’t see how it could be good. Angelina is not Emma Thompson, you know? I don’t see Angelina as being able to write a decent screenplay. Maybe she cowrote it, and the cowriter is someone who fixed all of Angelina’s nonsense? Maybe she’s based her script on a true story? That might be a little bit better – because that way, Angelina is just adapting, and there might be hope.

Before I forget, this is mentioned in the above article – did you know that Angelina’s film with Johnny Depp – The Tourist – is coming out this Christmas/awards season? It wasn’t supposed to come out until next year, but the studio pushed up the release date for some reason. I’m thinking that it’s about money rather than awards – from what I know of the plot, it doesn’t sound like an awards contender, so it’s likely just a suspense/action film that the studio hopes will make buckets of money during the holidays.

58 Responses to “Angelina Jolie wrote the “Bosnian love story” screenplay she’s set to direct”

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Angelina is a very good writer. You should read some of her UNHCR pieces. Angelina also wrote a book about her travels, which OMG The name escapes me. I will come back and post the name to it, its something about her travels, Stories from her travels. Something. I will tell you in a second. Angelina is very talented and if anyone can do a fantastic job at writing and directing its Angelina. Plus Angie will have the best people to get advice from…hello Clint Eastwood, Brad Pitt, every director who she has worked with. Angelina will kick ass on this. Also as far as I know there are no details on the screenplay. Other than the ones one that it will be set in war time and its a love story.

I’m sure it will be interesting. I think it’s cool that she’s doing something different. I won’t judge her movie script writing abilities until I see the movie or whatever but it’s not like she doesnt have experience. She did grow up in Hollywood with a great actor father. Plus, I remember everyone kissing drew barrymores arse before her bomb even got started and then it bombed and it was pretty lame movie. but because y’all love drew the hippy lame ass she got 4 stars for the turd before it was even released. Lol

The Tourist is being released in Dec to be eligible for Oscar consideration according to article @boxofficemojo.Angie and Brad went to Bosnia last year I think the movie is loosely based on a woman/refugee she met during that visit. I can’t remember what site I read that on.OT RIP to Martin Short’s wife of 30 years, Nancy, he often spoke fondly of her on talk shows.

It seems like if she wanted to highlight an issue/area of the world and portray an accurate story, she would fund someone from the area to do a movie. I can’t believe that she is so in touch with the culture there that she can direct an authentic love story from that time and plave

Love Angelina, I read some of her UNHCR pieces and I thought that my secondary school essays were better written.
As for Angelina directing a movie, well, if Asia Argento did it, why not Angelina? Hollywood is full of crappy directors and screenplay writers, one more won’t kill us.
BUT I really believe that the wounds left by that war are still wide open and frankly I’m not going to see a movie about it (or about THAT war as a scenario behind a love story). No matter who the director is.

Edit:

“christ almighty, when did these *actors* become f*cking policy experts??? no wonder the world is going to shits – we have f*cking Lara Croft and Danny Ocean running things.”

@Lena LOL very funny. I am not that crazy about her I would drink or bathe in her old bath water.

Kim OMG You don’t know how excited I am that The Tourist is coming out this year and not 2011. OMG you have no idea how thrilled I am. I can’t wait. OMG Angie and Johnny in the same film, instant cinematic orgasm for me, which sounds gross I know.

I don’t like her and am not a huge fan of most of her acting, but who knows, she may turn out to be a decent writer/director.
coup, I agree with your comment about actors and policy. It does seem really odd that being an actor, of all professions, gives you an in for stuff like that. How many times have we heard of celebs meeting with Congress about some issue, stuff the average Joe could never do, even if they were far more knowledgeable on the subject. Silly.

Anyway I remember when Jolie’s face would pop up
in that Rolling Stones vid…. Anybody seen my baby.
She’s been around for almost two decades. Jolie is like your sweet, pretty, smart school teacher. Except she’s not just pretty, she has the look of women from old Hollywood. Lena Horne, Audrey Hepburn, Dorothy Dandridge, and Marilyn Monroe. She also has their caring and giving heart too.

She is talented at what she does. She is also your friends pretty and cool mom. That’s why she’s fun to pay attention to.

Jolie is very articulate and obviously imaginative. I think this is going to be TIFF and Oscar stuff.

I’ll wait and see. And even if it bombs, I hope she re-groups, works on what the weaknesses were, and tries again. I’d much rather see someone who is trying to expand their interests and knowledge and risks failing than tread water safely. She chose movies as a career so that is obviously a field she’s interested in; considering how young she got her Oscar, arguably the top of the Hollywood acting ladder, I’m not surprised that at some point she would try writing and/or directing. I’m guessing her friendship with Clint Eastwood probably also has something to do with it. At least she’ll have good advice if she chooses to use it.

You know Kaiser, sometimes you just annoy the heck out of me!! Seriously. Have you ever read anything Angelina has written? Have you read any of the editorials or Op-Ed’s she has written for the NY Times and WashPo? I seriously doubt you have. The woman is smart and a very good writer. Of course, you probably believe, like other haters, that someone else writes these things for Angelina. According to people who know, that is not the case.

If you are a smart person and you know what you are writing about, it is very easy to do a screenplay. Also, most (probably all screenplays) are edited, rewritten, added to or whatever. Co-writing means that both people give their input.

As for “The Tourist” coming out two months earlier . . . to you it may be for “money” but it could also be because the studio thinks the movie is good enough to possibly get some nominations at awards time. The French version was not thought of as “just” an “action/thriller” so maybe this one isn’t either. And, the movie probably could make MORE money being released in February when studios usually release movies they don’t expect much of, so “The Tourist” starring two superstars would get far more attention then than at the holidays.

Oh, for goodness sake. I get it from both sides now! For the record, MsLewis, I am a Brangaloonie and I will defend Angelina against the plague of H8Rs that hound her daily. But that doesn’t mean that I have to think that everything she does is touched by an angel.

I do think Angelina has written all of her published policy pieces, and I have read parts of her published travel journal – Notes From My Travels. She’s a decent writer – when she’s writing in the first person, or when she’s discussing policy. Decent. not awesome.

It’s quite another to write a screenplay, and I don’t think she’s got the chops for it. JMO.

Oh, and hells to the yes The Tourist is being released for money, not for awards season. Depp and Jolie are two of the biggest money-makers in Hollywood!

As I said . . . releasing The Tourist in February, as first planned, would have made tons of money so, IN MY OPINION, releasing it in December instead is for the awards season, not for money. A movie with Depp and Jolie would make money no matter when it is released. Somebody in charge at the studio thinks the acting and story just might be good enough to get a nomination. That’s my opinion and I’m sticking with it.

Also, IMO, Angelina’s writing is quite good and it doesn’t take a Pulizer Prize winner to write a screenplay. There are thousands of people in Hollywood who call themselves “screenwriters” but there are not thousands of screenwriters making money these days.

And I apologize for calling you a hater but you do annoy me sometimes because you are so cynical.

@Solveig Well since I only have the pleasure of reading what you write here and Angelina is a published writer for esteemed magazines, as well as penned a book, I am gonna have to keep the opinion I have and that is that Angelina is a talented writer, who has the capabilities to write an amazing screenplay, and direct it. Angelina has been an actor since she was very young, been on movie sets her whole life, and read thousands of screenplays. Angelina will have far better guidance from other talented people around.

Angelina has more then 10 years experience in foreign matters and affairs. Angelina goes to these places herself. Angelina is by far the most dedicated and most involved person who just happens to be an actress in foreign matters then most people. Angie has opened so many people up to what happens in the world and I truly believe that qualifies her to speak on issues which she herself has seen and been directly affiliated with. No one has yet to find fault with her hard work. Angelina, most will agree, doesn’t half ass the work she has done on behalf of the refugees.

I looked up her book on Amazon. It sounds quite good. It’s gotten some very favorable reviews, going back to 2003 when the book was first published, up to the present. So far there are 56 5-star reviews, 7 4-star reviews and 1 3-star review. Check it out:

So I will so be seeing this. She is a smart woman and it is so rare that we get scripts or movies where the writer and Director are female. I applaud her for trying something different. Branching out.

This is not a full length feature film. Just a part of a whole. And she is Producing this for herself. Again something more women in Hollywood with money should be doing. I am sure Brad’s influence is there, and why should his Production company produce it. Angie has money in her own right, and I think she is moving into a different phase of her career when she is thinking about life after being in front of the camera. Something many women don’t think about until it is too late to get there foot in those doors.

I don’t know if some folks in here remembered like twenty years ago during the balkan war launched by Milosevic and carried on by the likes of war criminal Karadzic, that terrible storry…a small snipset and pictures took from it by a reporter who was oresent with his camera when a young couple was shot dead trying to flee the bullets from both armies.

Two young people, two dead bodies lying on the main streets took by diverse reporters hands in hands like totally embraced to each other.

It was a young couple of students : she was a muslim bosnian young girl and he was an orthodox serbian man. They were shot down because they happened to date each other when both communities were at war and they were trying to escape the war and moved on outside the country to live their love story that began when they were at college together.

The young man died instantly, the young girl who WAS fatally wounded used her last breath of life and in an ultimate effort went nearer her fiance touch his hand and then diednext to him in an embraced way.

I was young but remembered that story very much because it was shocking as it happened before the camera and heartbreaking and really represents a modern tragedy a la Romeo and Juliet not to mention the whole stupidity of the war.

War is just so senseless, obscene, extremely brutal and traumatic and put every otherproblem or drama we may have in the comfort of our life in a peaceful country in perspective.

No offense Kaiser, but I doubt you are a Brangeloonie. You like Angelina and think the kids are cute but you always doubt Brad. You said you were scared when Angelina expressed how much she loved Brad a few weeks ago. I get that you are interested in Angelina and you do like her for her UNHCR work but brangeloonies go gaga over the couple, but whenever I come to CB, I can expect another piece on the men she might have dated, the kinky S&M, the tell all books by authors who don’t do any research but not much on Brad and Angelina the couple.

How can you defend Angelina against the H8ers, when you give them so much fodder by giving attention to every tabloid story written about her? Do you that for every celebrity?

Thank you for taking my comment out of moderation. I will give you props for posting it because I know it was not the most positive comment. I enjoy this site and appreciate that you allow dissenting opinions.

@nnn: I didn’t knew about this story. I hope that Angelina is going to be smart about casting. There were reports about a croatian actor Rade Serbedzija(I’m not sure if this is how you spell his surname) being offered a role(main I think) and he is about 50/60 yrs old. I think it would be great decision if the main characters would be older because i can’t even imagine the sizes of actors egos if they were young(around 20/30). God I remember when Richard Gere was doing a movie in Croatia and when all the starlets, “models” and actresses were desperate to be noticed by producers.

Kaiser don’t you think you should read the script or see the movie before you say how horrible it is? I’m not sure why you thought Angelina was starring when most reports had her just directing. This is obviously an independent, art film not a big budget Hollywood project considering Angelina is directing and using only locals. A studio isn’t going to give her $100 million. Many war movies have a lovestory so I don’t know why people are making a big deal about this one.

SARAJEVO, May 23, 1993 – Two lovers lie dead on the banks of Sarajevo’s Miljacka river, locked in a final embrace.

For four days they have sprawled near Vrbana bridge in a wasteland of shell-blasted rubble, downed tree branches and dangling power lines.

So dangerous is the area no one has dared recover their bodies.

Bosko Brckic and Admira Ismic, both 25, were shot dead on Wednesday trying to escape the besieged Bosnian capital for Serbia.

Sweethearts since high school, he was a Serb and she was a Moslem.

“They were shot at the same time, but he fell instantly and she was still alive,” recounts Dino, a soldier who saw the couple trying to cross from government territory to rebel Serb positions.

“She crawled over and hugged him and they died like that, in each other’s arms.”

Squinting through a hole in the sandbagged wall of a bombed-out building, Dino points to where the couple lie mouldering amid the debris of Bosnia’s 14-month civil war.

Bosko is face-down on the pavement, right arm bent awkwardly behind him. Admira lies next to her lover, left arm across his back.

Another corpse, that of a man shot five months ago, lies nearby. The dead man’s body is so wasted his clothes seem hollow.

The government side says Serb soldiers shot the couple, but Serb forces insist Bosnian Moslem-led government troops were responsible.

“I don’t care who killed them, I just want their bodies so I can bury them,” says Zijah Ismic, the dead girl’s father. “I don’t want them to rot in no-man’s land.”

Government and Serb authorities have discussed the matter, but so far are refusing a cease-fire around Vrbana bridge to permit recovery of the couple.

The United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR), charged with providing humanitarian assistance in Sarajevo, maintains the bodies are a local issue.

“I’m an auto mechanic and I know a lot of people in this city,” says the girl’s father. “Everyone is washing their hands in this case, Bosnians and Serbs alike.”

In a country mad for war, Bosko and Admira were crazy for each other.

The university chemistry students dated for seven years before moving in to live together nine months ago.

With his father dead, no one would have blamed Bosko had he left Sarajevo when his mother and brother fled before war broke out last year.

Instead, he stayed in the city.

“He had no one here, just Admira,” explains the dead girl’s mother.

“Bosko stayed in Sarajevo because of her. Admira wanted to repay him by travelling with him to Serbia.”

Mystery, and perhaps treachery, surrounds the couple’s death. Government and Serb officials admit they agreed to let them pass through the lines last Wednesday afternoon at 4.00 pm. Bosko and Admira walked at least 500 meters along the north bank of the Miljacka river, fully exposed to soldiers on both sides.

As they passed Bosnian lines and headed for the Serb-held neighbourhood of Grbavica, someone shot them.

The young couple had been dead two days before Admira’s parents found out. Ham radio operators in Serbia contacted them trying to confirm rumours of Bosko’s death.

“I spoke to his mother then and she gave me permission to bury them together in Sarajevo,” says Admira’s father.

“We want them to lie together in the ground, just as they died together,” he adds.

Frantic to retrieve the bodies, Admira’s parents are bewildered by unresponsive Bosnian and Serb bureaucracies, and by UNPROFOR’s hands-off policy.

Zijah Ismic claims he begged UNPROFOR to let him drive one of its armoured pesonnel carriers in to get his daughter.

He says the U.N. told him armour-piercing rounds from machine-guns and cannon around Vrbana bridge would go through the vehicle.

“Love took them to their deaths,” Ismic says of Bosko and Admira.

“That’s proof this is not a war between Serbs and Moslems. It’s a war between crazy people, between monsters. That’s why their bodies are still out there.”

I’m not too sure about her writing, directing AND starring at the same time. I think it’d be better if she just directed herself in something first, not all three at once. But I think she’s intelligent, and it’s obviously a period/place that she’s passionate about, so it might end up okay.

Also, can I just say what good quality entertainment Love Angelina is? Always a good chuckle early in the morning.

Oh, I knew istinctively that the movie was about this story. It is a heartbreaking story and if you ask people what is the strongest memory they have about that war, I’m pretty sure they would say Bosko and Admira’s tragic death.
I said above that I don’t have the guts to see a movie about ex-Jugoslavia’s war, but knowing that the movie is about them makes me hate the idea of the movie itself.
I may sound a completely idiot, but in a certain way I think that the tragedy of this couple is sacred, and that a respectful silence should be maintained and is due to its memory.

Thanks nnn for the news.

@Love Angelina, there are a lot of writers whose books aren’t worth reading, Angelina is in good company.
Also, I think that this kind of issue should be left to the ones who are on an informed basis (reporters, doctors, politicians).
I appreciate her (Angelina’s) commitment to those causes, and in general I think that she’s sincere, but saying that she’s a good writer is an exaggeration due to the love and awe you fans have for her. And Kaiser has proven that you can be somebody’s fan without loving everything they do, think, say. After all she (Angelina) is only a human being. Her book was published just because of the hype surrounding her persona, as well as Madonna’s tales book.
It is really sad and mortifyind to know that people are interested (or informed) on these issues just because some celebrity talks about it.
Long story short, I’m not condemning her (and others’) attempts to write, but most time wholehearted isn’t synonymous of quality.

I know Crash but sometimes it is the right thing to do out of a duty of consciousness for the universal collective memory.

I rather see a movie inspired by it with some romancized bits than a documentary with all the gloomy details attached to the harsh reality, including the pictures of those lovers. If memory serves me well, i remembered how gorgeous they were shot down because of their diffrent background, because both sides didn’t want that they date each other as they represents the symbol of unity in a country where both sides preached appartheid.

So sad and tragic !

Anyway, sometimes we have to be reminded that we are living in the luckiest part of the world and that whatever our frustrations and problems, it’s still nothing compared to what some people, women and children included are living today, this minute in war torn or poverty striken countries.

The drama is the most beautiful expression of the ideal of love, timeless, shows true emotion in the face, despite the war, transposes all barriers to finally find peace.
Angie found her soul in this ideal, as an artist, as a mom, as Goodwill. Love is for ever written!

I agree with Solveig, in her book Notes on my Travels, she sounded very naive and it seemed full of cliches. Kind of cringe worthy reading it and I really loved Angelina at the time. I’ve read those editorial pieces by her and they sounded far more intelligent. Either she got a lot better or she had some help. I’d be curious to see what she comes up with if she writes a screen play. I have a feeling she has a great imagination, I’m a little worried about any character dialogue though. I am definitely curious to see how she does with this, I hope she does it justice.
Also need to add that she looks lovely in that first picture.

I like her and all but I truly think this project is ill suited to her. The story of Bosko and Admira is not something for an outsider to come in and mess around with. They became an important symbol for a nation we literally watched rip itself apart on our tv screens not that long ago.

Just like the Rwandan Genocide it is really difficult to dramatize something so horrific, and still so fresh in the history books that to me it almost borders on gross and inappropriate to imagine someone will profit from this.

Which is why I didn’t care for Hotel Rwanda or Welcome to Sarajevo. Or even Shake Hands with the Devil. Great movies,sure, but I’d much rather get the facts, watch a documentary and then reel at what a useless entity the UN is rather than offer brownie points to some actress who devotes a good chunk of her time to it.

So yeah she does good humanitarian work, too bad about the rest of that organization and her taste in fashion and subject matter for a film!

Okay so while all fiction writing is *sucking the blood of the living* to some extent, and you need to use other people’s experiences etc, I am absolutely positive that a Bosnian love story should be written by a Bosnian lover.

Not an overpriv’d tryhard with no one to tell her ‘please, just stop right there, monster ego’. Because judging from the interviews I’ve read, this girl shouldn’t ever be left alone with words she doesn’t understand.

Do you know how I know it will be an insulting, embarrassing mess? Any writer with two brain cells to rub together OUTSIDE the Bosnian situation wouldn’t touch this if someone were holding a gun to their heads. Because no one ever HAS held a gun to their head. See how that works?
Angelina, spare us, spare yourself, spare the Bosnians who were actually there… I could go on all day. Just no.

Oh jesus, no one wants to see some tragic Romeo and Juliet style story about some poor people who got blasted away during a war and died together in a ditch.

What a depressing story.

EDIT: And just being around people who can write screenplays does NOT mean you can write a screenplay. That’s like me saying that because I’ve been around teachers all my life, I must be able to teach as well. No. Screenwriting is a whole process-there are acts and entire theories around what makes a successful script. And there is all kinds of jargon. It is not easy, even for professionals. And she is not a professional screenwriter.

Coup, she’s not an actress pretending to be a policy expert. She’s got 10 years with UNHCR and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. That gives her the chops to meet with people and, knowing her, do more listening than talking.

The Reuters story also says she’s coproducing the movie, in addition to directing and writing the script.

So how does she have time to do all this, take care of 6 small children, own homes around the world, travel, do UN work, write books, and maintain a relationship with Brad? It makes me feel completely inadequate! I have never met anyone who has this level of activity.